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News from our partners: Future of local hospital services secured for people of Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid-Wales

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News from our partners Future Fit

Plans have been given the go ahead yesterday (Tuesday 29 January 2019) to transform local hospital services for the half a million residents of Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid-Wales to make sure two vibrant hospitals and the wide range of services they provide for people locally are kept in the county.

This landmark decision will result in better care for patients, secure the £312m on offer from HM Treasury and develop both hospital sites to deliver state of the art facilities in which staff will be proud to work and patients will choose to be treated.

The decision by the Joint Committee of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) on 29 January 2019 evening follows many years of planning and a formal public consultation, which brought about an unprecedented response rate from more than 3% of local people served by the hospitals. It will now allow plans to move forward to implement the model of better care for the future that have been developed by the public and over 300 clinicians, GPs and social care professionals.

Members of the Joint Committee of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin CCGs have unanimously approved Option 1 (the CCGs’ preferred option). This means that the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford will become a dedicated Planned Care site and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shrewsbury will become a specialist Emergency Care site. This will allow specialist doctors to treat the most serious cases on the Emergency Care site, which is proven to be safer, provide better results for patients and reduce the amount of time people have to stay in hospital.

By having a separate Planned Care site, patients will wait less time for their appointments and beds would be protected for planned operations, meaning that is highly unlikely operations will be cancelled due to emergency admissions. In addition, patients will be able to access 24 hour urgent care services at both hospitals. This means that almost 80% of patients will continue to go to the same hospital as they do now for emergency and urgent care.

David Evans, Chief Officer at NHS Telford & Wrekin CCG commented:-

“Yesterday marked the dawn of an exciting new era for our hospital services. We understand that people have concerns and the numbers that attended the meeting yesterday highlights just how passionate people are about the NHS. However, we are equally passionate about ensuring that our patients benefit from the best NHS treatment possible and the decision we have made today is vital for the future of patient care. Both the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital will continue to provide the services our patients use the most. These include outpatient appointments, midwife led services, tests and urgent care.

“People can be assured that this is not a downgrading of services. This is all about a huge improvement in the care that patients will receive and the majority of patients are still going to be seen in their local hospital in the urgent care centre. In order for the local NHS to deliver top quality emergency care, we need all specialities on one site.”

Dr Simon Freeman, Accountable Officer for NHS Shropshire CCG said:

“We recognise that not everyone will agree with the decision made by the Joint Committee yesterday, but people can be assured that we are acting in the best interests of our patients. Our doctors, nurses and other health professionals strongly believe that hospital services have to change for the better and this view is shared by our regulator, NHS England.

“The changes that have been agreed by the Joint Committee yesterday will mean that patients receive the best care in the right place at the right time, in better facilities with reduced waiting times. It will also mean we can attract the very best doctors and nurses to work at our hospitals and we can maintain the right level of highly skilled clinicians across both our hospitals. The new model of patient care also takes into account the expected changes in our population over the coming years and how the best care can be provided for everyone. I also want to reassure our communities, patients and staff that no services will change overnight. Robust plans will now need to be developed that will include a phased building programme over the next five years.

“We are all extremely grateful to the thousands of people who took part in the consultation and look forward to continuing to involve patients and the public over the coming years.”

Now that the decision has been made, it will take several years for the programme to be completed. A significant amount of work will need to be done to implement the huge improvements that patients will experience.

The following services will be provided at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital:

24-hour Emergency Department

Critical Care Unit

Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit

Emergency surgery and medicine

Complex planned surgery

Women and children’s consultant-led inpatient services.

The following services will be provided at the Princess Royal Hospital:

Planned inpatient surgery

Day case surgery

Breast inpatient services

Medical wards.

Most people will still receive care and treatment in the same hospital as they do now, as the following services will be provided at both hospitals:

The Joint Committee of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin CCGs, which comprises local senior clinicians, board members from Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin CCGs, independent clinicians from outside of the area and an independent chair, was asked to approve seven recommendations, set out in a decision-making business case.

This included confirming the CCGs’ previous unanimous decision on the preferred option (Option 1) of The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital becoming an Emergency Care site and The Princess Royal Hospital becoming a Planned Care site, with a 24-hour Urgent Care Centre at both hospitals.

After carefully considering all the work that has been carried out by the Future Fit programme over the last six years and considering all the evidence, members of the Joint Committee voted unanimously in favour of Option 1.

About the Joint Committee of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin CCGs

The Joint Committee is comprised of an independent chair, three independent clinicians, and 12 members of the CCG Governing Bodies (three clinicians, one executive and two lay members from each CCG). All members, including the independent chair, are voting members. Below is a list of names:

NHS Shropshire CCG

Dr Julian Povey – clinician

Dr Jess Sokolov – clinician

Dr Finola Lynch – clinician

Keith Timmins – lay member

William Hutton – lay member

Claire Skidmore – executive

NHS Telford & Wrekin CCG

Dr Jo Leahy – clinician

Tracey Slater – clinician

Dr Carolyn Fenton-West – clinician

Geoff Braden – lay member

Neil Maybury – lay member

Christine Morris – executive

Independent members

Professor Simon Brake – independent chair

Dr Jattinder Khaira – independent clinician

Dr Tabitha Randell – independent clinician

The voting independent chair and the voting independent clinicians have been appointed by NHS England and approved by both the two CCG Governing Bodies.

Adrian Osborne, executive from Powys Teaching Health Board is also invited to the Joint Committee but will be non-voting. This reflects Powys Teaching Health Board’s position regarding voting.

Observers at the meeting included one representative from:

Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin

Healthwatch Shropshire

Shropshire Patient Group

Telford Patients First Group

Powys Community Health Council

Telford and Wrekin Council

Shropshire Council

The voting members each had one vote. The decision of the Joint Committee would be by majority vote and be binding on both CCGs.

The Joint Committee was convened in August 2017 and on behalf of the two CCGs acted as the decision-making body that received the recommendations from the Future Fit Programme Board on the outcome of the option appraisal process for the reconfiguration of acute hospital services.

At this meeting the Committee unanimously confirmed the two options the CCGs believed were deliverable, together with the recommendation of a preferred option and the agreement to proceed to formal consultation. This was then subjected to the NHS England assurance process.

Future Fit consultation

The Future Fit public consultation ran from 30 May to Tuesday 11 September 2018 and asked for the views of people across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid Wales on the following two options:

Option 1: The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital becomes an Emergency Care site and the

Princess Royal Hospital becomes a Planned Care site

(This is the CCGs’ preferred option)

Option 2: The Princess Royal Hospital becomes an Emergency Care site and the

Royal Shrewsbury Hospital becomes a Planned Care site

Under either option, both hospitals would have an Urgent Care Centre that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There patients would receive care for illnesses and injuries that are not life or limb-threatening but require urgent attention